Chapter 18
Avery
By the time I got home that night, I had become very calm in the way of people right before they do something incredibly stupid.
Callum had wanted me to go home with security, which sounded dramatic until Benjamin appeared at his office door with a grim little alphabetical list of reasons it was not dramatic enough.
Dana had agreed with him, which should have settled the matter because Dana agreed with no one unless the alternative was legally or structurally unsound.
Tom from legal had hovered in the background, pale and fluttery, looking like he had personally invented liability and regretted giving it so many opportunities.
In the end, I had left Rowe Tower in a company car with a driver Callum trusted, a security escort that stayed discreet enough to be humiliating, and the knowledge that somewhere in the city, strangers had pictures of me I had not consented to being taken.
Pictures of us. Against the window. Us in Callum’s office.
Us after hours, after the world had narrowed to his hands and my breath and the kind of hunger that had felt private because I thought it had been private.
Foolishly private. Glass-walled-office private, which was to say not private at all if someone had a drone and the moral compass of a sewer rat.
When the driver pulled up outside my building, I just sat there for a long second, caught up in my head.
The driver glanced at me through the rearview mirror. “Would you like me to walk you in, Ms. Hale?”
“No!” My voice came out too quickly, too loudly. I softened it because none of this was his fault. “No, thank you. I’m okay.”
He did not look convinced, but he did not argue.
Callum had probably chosen him for that exact quality: obedience without commentary.
I got out, walked myself into the building, climbed the stairs, unlocked my apartment, locked the door behind me, then stood in the tiny entry with my purse still over my shoulder and my coat still buttoned.
Looking around in a daze, I suddenly rushed to the front window and pulled the drapes shut so violently I feared I had yanked them right off the wall.
Then I laughed. I started shaking like my nervous system had waited until I was alone before knocking every glass off every shelf.
I dropped my purse. It hit the floor and spilled lipstick, keys, a receipt, and Ben’s business card like evidence of a life that had been pretending to be organized.
I sank down beside it, back against the wall, knees drawn up, coat bunching around my thighs, and pressed both hands over my mouth.
They had pictures.
They had watched me.
They had watched us.
Some stranger had looked at something that had been mine and Callum’s and turned it into leverage against the entire company.
They had used me because I was useful, a pressure point, and because the quickest way to make powerful men bleed, apparently, was still to aim at the woman beside them and call it strategy.
My phone buzzed in my coat pocket.
I knew it was him before I looked at the screen.
Callum Rowe: Home?
I stared at his name until the letters blurred. I should have answered immediately. I should have told him I was inside, locked in, fine, eating something, or sleeping like he always told me to. Instead, I sat there on the floor staring at the phone, my heart trying to beat through my ribs.
Another buzz.
Callum Rowe: Avery?
The fact that he used just my name undid me a little.
Me: Home. Door locked.
His reply came quickly.
Callum Rowe: Good. I’ll call in ten.
Panic sparked through the calm.
Me: Don’t.
Three dots appeared, then disappeared and then appeared again.
Callum Rowe: Tell me why.
Because if I hear your voice, I’ll cry. Because if I cry, you’ll come here. Because if you come here, I’ll let you hold me, and then I will never find the part of me that knows how to stand up on my own again. Because I do not want to be protected until there is nothing left of me except you.
I typed none of that. Maybe I should have.
Me: I need Jules tonight.
A pause.
Longer this time.
Callum Rowe: Alright.
Then:
Callum Rowe: I want you to tell her only what you are comfortable telling her. Do not send photos. Do not forward anything. Do not discuss legal strategy.
I almost smiled despite everything.
Me: Yes, sir.
His answer took several seconds.
Callum Rowe: Not tonight. Tonight, just be safe.
That made me cry.
One second, I was not crying, and then I was, silently at first, tears spilling hot and fast down my face while I sat on the floor and stared at the phone in my hand. I pressed my fist against my mouth and tried to stop it, which of course made it worse.
I called Jules.
She answered on the first ring. “Hey. I was just about to text you. How was—”
I made a sound. She stopped immediately and I heard her voice go suddenly serious.
“Avery?”
“I need you,” I sobbed.
“I’m coming.”
“I’m fine,” I lied, because panic made me stupid.
“You are absolutely not. Stay on the phone.”
“Jules—”
“Stay on the phone.”
So I did. I stayed on the phone while she put on shoes, cursed at one shoe for hiding, grabbed her keys, and left her apartment.
I stayed on the phone while she speed-walked the four blocks to my building.
I stayed on the phone while she buzzed to come up, while I stood on shaky legs and let her in, while she climbed the stairs and appeared in my doorway with wind-tangled hair, no lipstick, and a face so frightened I almost started apologizing.
She stepped inside and grabbed me before I could speak.
Jules was not a soft hugger. She hugged like she was trying to pin you to earth by force.
Her arms wrapped around me, tight and fierce, and for a few seconds I let myself collapse into her because she was Jules.
My Jules. My best friend. The woman who had bullied me into sending the email, dressed me for dinner, laughed with me, asked the questions that mattered, and somehow always knew when to bring wine and when to bring weapons.
“What happened?” she asked into my hair.
I shook my head.
“Okay.” She pulled back just enough to look at me. “Couch. Now.”
“I’m not a toddler.”
“Couch.”
I went because arguing took energy I did not have.
Jules took off my coat for me, which should have been insulting and was instead the most merciful thing anyone had done for me all day.
She put water in my hand. I held it and did not drink.
She sat beside me on the couch, angled toward me, with one knee tucked under herself and her hands folded too tightly in her lap.
“What happened?” Jules asked again, softer.
I told her everything. The story came out in ugly, disconnected pieces, accompanied by tears and a running nose and tissues. Jules sat very still and just listened. I noticed, but I was too deep in my own panic to understand why.
“They don’t care about us,” I said, gripping the water glass with both hands.
“They don’t care that he’s my boss. They don’t care that he was my dad’s best friend.
They don’t care about the age difference or the sex or the godfather thing except as a headline.
They just want Hartwell. They want Callum to back down. ”
Jules’s face had gone pale.
“They have photos,” I shouted, my voice cracking on the word. “Not just the usual stalking type ones. There’s a drone photo. From the office when we were having sex against the window. It’s grainy, but clear enough that everyone knows what it is if they see it.”
“Jesus,” Jules whispered.
“And there’s information.” I pressed the heel of my hand to my forehead.
“That’s the part I don’t understand. The pictures are horrible, but I understand how a horrible person with a camera gets pictures.
But they know things. Some of it could be guessed, maybe.
Some from public records or timing or whatever.
But some of it feels too close. Like they knew where to look before they looked. ”
Jules did not move. Her hands were clasped in her lap so tightly her knuckles had gone white. Her lips were parted. She looked like she might be sick.
“Jules?”
Her eyes filled immediately and my stomach dropped.
“No,” I gasped.
She closed her eyes.
“No,” I said again, much louder now, because the first one had sounded too much like pleading. “No. Don’t you dare make that face.”
“Avery.”
“What did you do?”
The words came out before I had softened them. I did not want to soften them. Suddenly there was no air in the apartment. The walls seemed too close. Jules opened her eyes, and tears slipped down her face.
“I didn’t know it was them,” she whispered.
My whole body went ice cold.
“What did you do?” I asked again.
She put a hand over her mouth, shook her head once, then dropped it like she knew she did not deserve the shield. “They contacted me after the first dinner.”
“They?” I asked.
“I don’t know who they were, at least not at first. It was a woman. She said she worked for a private reputation firm. She knew my name. She knew yours. She said there was concern about a public figure being targeted. She made it sound like they were trying to keep something from coming out.”
“A public figure?”
“Callum.”
My laugh was short and ugly. “So, you talked to a random woman about my life?”
“No. Not like that. Not at first.” Jules wiped at her face angrily. “I told her to go to hell. I hung up. Then she sent me photos.”
The room went very still.
“Of you?” I asked.
Jules nodded once.
“Oh, Jules.”
She shook her head harder. “Don’t do that. Don’t be kind yet. I can’t handle it.”
“What photos?”
“Private ones.” Her voice went flat with shame. “Old ones. From Joey.”